


No Excuse for a Wasted Life

by cofax



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 14:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jo Harvelle picks her battles. Spoilers through "No Exit" (season 2).</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Excuse for a Wasted Life

_The wood surface is scored with old gashes: her fingers catch on the jagged edges as she runs her hands across it, searching for something, anything. A latch. A weakness. _

_But there's nothing: no hook, no knob, no key she can turn to free her from this box. Her gasping breaths fill her ears, and the air smells dank, foul, with the obvious underlying odor of rot. Is this where those other women died in the dark?_

_Bait? Whose brilliant idea was that again?_

*

 

"Don't you have something you need to finish?"

"Yeah, but--" Jo cast a longing glance at the sun coming through the kitchen window. It was probably the last nice day of the year, and Frank had promised to take her shooting.

Ellen dropped a clean plate on the stack with a distinct clank, her shoulders tightening beneath her worn flannel shirt. Jo was pretty sure her mother had worn that shirt every Saturday for the last seven years, and that if Jo turned the collar out, she'd find WAH written on the label. "Those essays won't write themselves."

Jo poked at the remains of her breakfast, pushing a crust of toast around in the pool of runny egg-yolk. "It's a waste of time. If I were a hunter I wouldn't need--"

"You _will_ finish those applications," said Ellen, her voice flat. "You understand me?"

"Dad didn't go to college--" began Jo, a tactic she knew was doomed before she finished the sentence.

"Joanna Beth." Ellen turned around and leaned back against the kitchen counter, her arms folded. She looked calm, but the way her eyes narrowed, Jo figured she had about ninety seconds before her mother started breaking plates. "Your father didn't, but he meant for you to go, and I believe you and I had a deal, didn't we?"

Jo could work in the bar, but only if half her tips went towards college--and only if there were no more "field trips" with any of the hunters. It had seemed like a pretty fair deal a year ago, when Jo was sixteen. But she'd grown up since then, and learned a lot. College wasn't going to teach her what she needed to know.

"Didn't we?" Ellen prodded, her voice sharpening.

"Yeah, we did," Jo admitted, and got up reluctantly to fetch the envelope containing the endless petty forms. She had to apply, but that didn't mean she actually had to go, not if they didn't accept her.

*

 

_Teresa stopped crying a while ago. Jo wants to check on her but maybe she's asleep. It's dark: Jo has to save the flashlight batteries, since she'd used it for several hours before Holmes had grabbed her. Dean must be looking for her. Dean and Sam, she amends. They'll find her._

_The last thing she did before she left home was lie to her mother, she thinks, and forces herself to keep her eyes open against the dark._

*

 

"I can take the bus, Ma, it's okay. You don't need to drive me." Because wasn't that the whole point of going? If she had to go, she'd go on her own. Except she got off at the wrong stop, and then got turned around, and ended up hiking for over a mile through downtown Lincoln, pack on her back, in the late-August heat. When she finally found the dorm complex, and stumbled, grimy and sticky with sweat, into the first floor of Sandoz, it was almost five pm.

"Harvelle, Harvelle, right," muttered the boy at the table, tapping his way down a laptop screen. "Oh, right. Four-oh-three, here's your keys, outside doors are locked at nine, here's your packet, orientation starts at eight, don't forget to bring your mealcard with you in the morning." Jo fumbled the manila envelope, stuffed the keys into her jeans pocket under the hip-strap of her pack, and staggered to the elevator.

"You must be Joanna!" shrieked the girl in Four-Oh-Three, who was chestnut-haired and busty and dressed in something Jo's mother would have burned before she let Jo wear it in the bar. "I'm Sharon! Oh my god, this is gonna be so much fun!"

One entire wall of the room was covered with posters of young men with spiky hair and eyeliner. Jo blinked and dropped her pack onto her bed. "Jo," she said after a moment, raising her voice over the music. "Just call me Jo."

*

 

_Her knife is gone. Oh, god, she's dropped her knife and those disgusting hands are fumbling over her, long ragged nails catching on her clothes and her hair, foul breath gusting across her cheek--I didn't know spirits could breathe, she thinks--and the crooning on top of it all makes her gag. _

_The hand clamps across her mouth and although she can't breathe, Jo is moments from ralphing all over both herself and the legendary H.H. Holmes--and then she hears Dean's voice. There's the boom of a shotgun, deafening in the small space, and Holmes is gone, as if he evaporated. She is free, and relief surges through her, so strong she is embarrassed by it later._

_But only later. In the moment, all she can think is, thank you thank you thank you._

*

 

Tuesday night was Miller Lite night in the Fourth Sandoz lounge, as long as Carla the RA was taking that night class in the anthropology of film. Jo found Sharon there, after first trying their room, and then the bathroom.

"Yo, Jo!" said Jeremy as Jo edged open the door. The big television was blaring--some reality show about models that Sharon always insisted on watching--and a neat stack of empties was piled on the table against the wall. Jeremy and Shawna would clear them out during the night and pocket the tiny recycling fee, and next week everyone would chip in again to cover the beers.

"Hey, Jeremy," Jo said, peering past him, reluctant to step across his big feet. "'Sup?" If she kept her right hand clenched in her pocket the bleeding might stop; good thing she was wearing her black wool coat and not the jean jacket. Her hand didn't hurt too much; it was the way she'd fallen against the bench that made turning uncomfortable.

"Nada mucho," said Jeremy, pulling his feet in so Jo could get by. "Hey, there's a midnight showing of _Aliens_ tomorrow--you wanna go?"

Sharon was in the corner, face flushed--she must be on her second or third beer--and her hands flashing as she explained something to Deb. Jo shrugged. "Um, maybe? I'll catch you later--"

"Yeah, all right..." Jeremy's voice was drowned in the sudden increase in volume as a new commercial came on the tv. Derek and Jose were playing quarters on the table and Jo had to squeeze past them, trying not to bump into Tiphani, who wasn't very stable at the best of times, and was downright dangerous with a beer in her hand.

"Sharon," Jo said, coming up next to her on the couch and awkwardly turning around, because she had her backpack on her left shoulder and her right hand jammed in her pocket and it seemed likely that soon she was going to be getting blood all over the floor and wasn't that going to be fun? It was at least a mile to Health Services, and god only knew what she was going to tell them. But first she had to talk to Sharon.

Jo raised her voice over the car commercial. "Sharon!"

"What? Oh, hey, Jo--get your paper finished? There's still some beer--" Sharon wasn't drunk, not on two Miller Lites, but she was cheerful in that way that some people get, before the buzz evolves to puking. Jo had worked in the bar since she was fourteen (state labor laws be damned): she had no romantic ideas about college kids and alcohol.

"No, thanks. Hey, Sharon, I--um, I bumped into Billy on the quad, you know--" How to do this? Sharon was at the end of the couch, leaning up against the arm, with Deb squeezed in next to her and Feebs at her feet, all of them bright and sweating in the crowded lounge. The commercial ended and Sharon's eyes flicked away from Jo, the faint puzzled look evaporating to avid interest as she focused back on the television.

Deb squealed, "Magenta! I called it!" and swigged her beer, Feebs protesting something about hexadecimal codes while Sharon snickered and Derek threw popcorn at Feebs' head. It was so _fucking_ loud, and after the terror and the pain in the darkness outside, the flickering television made Jo's eyes ache. She had to get out of here, get to Health Services, but not until she talked to Sharon.

She dropped her backpack, grabbing Sharon's arm and shaking it. "Sharon!"

"What!" Sharon snapped resentfully. "Can't you see--" And then she stopped, staring. Her eyes grew larger. "Jo, you're bleeding."

Shit. Jo had grabbed her with the wrong hand, the one that had been gashed. The blood on the back of her hand had dried a little, but the cut was still oozing, and her fingers were covered with it. Jo turned her hand palm-up, wincing at the red prints on Sharon's arm, at the way she could feel her pulse throbbing. "Yeah, see, that was what I wanted to tell you--"

"Jo, you're _bleeding!_ What the hell! Somebody help!"

Crap. "No, listen, Sharon--you gotta--Sharon, Billy--" But now Feebs was on Jo's other side, and Derek had grabbed her arm and was towing her to the door. The strap of her backpack, abandoned on the floor, caught on Jo's foot and she dragged it halfway across the floor before she managed to kick it off. But when she yanked her arm out of Feebs' hold and bent down to scoop it up, it tipped just that much farther and spilled across the floor as she swung it up by the strap.

Books, notebooks, wallet, and sunglasses went scattering across the dingy brown carpet. But on top of the yellow Chem 107 notebook was Jo's knife. Not the little one with her father's initials, but the big one Gordon had given her when she left home, the Bowie, its eight-inch blade still tacky and dulled with Billy's blood. Not that the knife had done much good--no matter how sharp the edge, a steel blade wouldn't have helped her anyway. In the end, the best Jo had been able to do was knock Billy over with a trashcan and run like hell.

Jo grabbed after the knife, but Derek got to it before her, grabbing it in a flash, his brows dipping in confusion. "What the hell?"

"Oh my god!" Sharon shrilled, her hands flying to her mouth. "What--what were you doing?"

_Crap._ This was just not going to get better, was it? Jo shoved Feebs away and put her hand out to Derek, demanding. "Give me that, it's mine."

"No way! You could hurt someone with this!" Derek closed his fist tighter about the hilt of the big knife, and took a step backwards.

_Duh._ Jo just barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. By now someone had turned the volume down and half of Fourth Sandoz was staring at her. "I just--it's mine, all right? I'm not gonna hurt anybody!" She really should have gone straight to Campus Police: trying to warn Sharon had been a stupid idea.

There were no friendly faces in the crowd around here: just familiar faces, filled with mistrust, shock, or outrage. There was no way to explain, nothing she could say. Werewolves in the quadrangle, succubi in the frat houses, maybe even Black Dogs in the stockyards, for all she knew--and no one would ever believe.

Time to cut her losses.

"You keep it, then," Jo snapped at Derek, and shoved the rest of her stuff back into her pack. "I'm out of here." No one tried to stop her as she slammed through the door and down the hall, blood still dripping from her hand.

*

 

_She knows Dean and Sam are there, right behind the grate, but she can't see them. Can't see anything but the cold stone, the niches holding the bodies of the girls who'd come before her and not escaped, the salt drawn along the walls. The floor is sandy above the stone and concrete, but hard under her ass and she'd really like to shift, wriggle her butt around until she finds a better spot, but there's no way she's doing that in front of them. She's got to stay still, waiting._

_It's fucking cold in here, and the fear isn't keeping her warm, she can feel the goose-pimples rising on her arms, but she won't rub her arms, won't give in. Whether she's more worried about standing up to that fucker Holmes or impressing the Winchesters--isn't a question she really wants to ask right now._

_Just a little longer now. She can stick it out; it's why she came here, isn't it?_

*

 

It was a long walk in the late afternoon, but one she'd made before. Before the bus had turned onto River Road and disappeared, Jo was cutting across the Morrisseys' south field, swinging casually along between the rows of knee-high corn. When she came out onto Hill Road--there was no more a hill around here than there was a river--she turned left, into the sun.

The dust kicked up around her bootheels, settled on her sunglasses and stuck to her sweaty face. The sky was mostly clear, with a few swirls of cloud in the blue. No wind at all, as if it were August instead of late May. As she crossed under a telephone pole she heard a sharp "kik-kik-kik", and then a bird flashed by overhead, something sharp and predatory. Going after the damn starlings, maybe.

Lots of weeds along the shoulder here, some bottles and cans. Jo kicked an empty Bud and it clattered across the tarmac, startling a rabbit. Brown and grey, colored like the land, it dashed out into the middle of the road and then stopped, frozen. Jo took another step and the rabbit darted away again, white tail flashing at her until it disappeared into the shrubs across the road.

Jo walked into the sun for another half an hour and there, finally, was the roadhouse, sitting out in the open at those old crossroads, on a parcel of land that only her dad would have thought to buy. It was still pretty early, only a few cars parked outside: her mother's truck, Ash's old beater, a couple of rusting pickups. It'd be quiet inside, maybe just some Emmylou on the jukebox if her mother had her way, the clink of bottles and clacking of balls on the pool table, Ash muttering about something in the corner. Dim and peaceful and smelling of beer and _home_.

Jo kicked her feet across the gravel yard, scattering stones, until she reached the screen door. She put her hand on the wooden handle, then paused and turned her palm to look at the red slice across her life-line.

"Ma!" she called, as she pulled the door open and shouldered her backpack into the shadowed bar. "I'm home!"

END

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by the ever spicy-brained Vehemently. Title courtesy of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, whom I would never have discovered but for this fandom, and whose music is extraordinarily applicable to the show.


End file.
